Yumi's Last Secret
by SamBlob
Summary: UY. How well do the rest of the team know Yumi? How well do fluff and angst mix? No OCs. Complete.
1. Revelation

**Author's disclaimer:**

_Code Lyoko,_ its locations, including Kadic Junior High and the factory, and its characters, including Jeremy, Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, Aelita and XANA, are the property of Antefilms Ltd.

* * *

**Chapter One: Revelation**

They were about two kilometres into the wood when Ulrich really began to wonder where Yumi was taking him, and why. She told him she had something serious to show him, but what could she have discovered out here? Why would she have been out here to discover it in the first place? And if it was really serious, why wasn't Jeremy with them?

A possibility kept reoccurring to him, and he hoped it was that, and he hoped it wasn't. The more he thought about it, and the further they went into the wood, the less he thought that was it. There were many more accessible places secluded enough for that. Besides which, Yumi looked far too nervous; no, that would make her nervous too, but she looked far too _grim_ for it to be that.

Her grimness initiated a more sinister possibility: Could this be XANA's clone, carrying him to a secluded place to kill him? No, he thought. The clone never looked this worried, and besides, they had already passed about three places where she could have dumped his body with no real fear of it being discovered.

The depth to which they had penetrated the forest, the fact that they were still going without him having any idea what their destination might be, and Yumi's strange mixture of unease and determination would have been enough to worry Ulrich greatly, but something else occurred to him. Despite Yumi's usual attire and obvious anguish, she looked, strangely, as if she belonged in this wood. Rather, she looked as if she belonged in woods wilder than this conquered land, woods where there were predators, woods where there was prey.

Ulrich thought all this in silence, following Yumi as she lead him along trails and across trails through the thickness of the forest, seemingly guided by instinct rather than by memory. Their hike ended at a clearing close to a ridge. Ulrich went directly to the edge of the clearing where, while standing among the trees at the edge of the ridge, he could see the city below, and the river. He saw all of the Kadic campus, and the full length of the island and the factory that stood on it.

The view, magnificent as it was, did not have Ulrich's undivided attention. He looked back and forth between the vista below him and Yumi behind him. She had walked completely around the clearing, looking into the trees and bushes and… sniffing? When she had finished this strange search, she went to Ulrich, put her hand on his shoulder, looked in his eyes with the same expression she had worn throughout this journey, and pulled him gently. She led him to the middle of the clearing, and then stopped, looked into his eyes again, and spoke for the first time since they left Kadic.

"Here," she said.

"So, uh, what's here?" asked Ulrich.

"Nothing," she replied, "and, more to the point, no-one."

"There's been nothing and no-one for the last forty-five minutes." Ulrich said.

"Closer to twenty minutes, really," she replied, " but this is the first clearing we've come to since then."

"So what's so important that you had to take me to the middle of nowhere to tell me?"

Silence. She looked down. When she looked up again, her face looked drained; she seemed even more nervous than before.

"Ulrich, I… um… there's something about me that you don't know. I've been keeping it secret from just about everyone, but I don't want to keep any secrets from you…"

She hesitated, then went on: "Ulrich, I love you, and I don't want to have any secrets from you. There is no way I can tell you about me, so I'll have to show you."

Ulrich had no idea what to feel. Should he be happy because she told him she loved him? Should he be sad because of her almost frantic anguish? He finally settled on being exasperated at all the hesitation after being dragged into this corner of the wilderness.

"O.K., show me, then" he said curtly.

Yumi sighed. "This is going to sound childish," she said, "but I'm asking you to close your eyes and count to three."

Ulrich was taken aback. Did Yumi put him through all this for some child's game? More to get it over with than anything else, he said "O.K.," closed his eyes, and counted "One, two…"

As he said "Three," he felt Yumi kiss him on his forehead. He giggled, "Hey! That's not fai… HUH?"

Yumi's eyes were now yellow, but Ulrich did not notice that. It was her ears that held his complete attention. They were high on the sides of her head and they were large, red and furry, with black tips and white insides.

"What the…? YUMI!" exclaimed Ulrich. "What happened to you?"

"Well, Ulrich," she said embarrassedly, "nothing really happened to me. This is what I am."

"And what _are_ you, exactly?"

"A kitsune. A fox spirit."

"So why're you here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you here? In France, at Kadic; why are you here?"

"To be with my parents. My mother and father, my stepfather, really; he's human."

"So you've been fooling all of us, all this time?"

"If you're asking if I kept this secret from everyone, then no. Jeremy knows. Aelita, too."

"You _told_ them?"

"Yes"

"Why'd'ya tell them and not me?"

"Because they asked me about it."

"Huh?" he exclaimed, startled. "Why would they ask you that?"

"You can't hide anything from the scanner, Ulrich."


	2. Discovery

**Author's disclaimer:**

_Code Lyoko,_ its locations, including Kadic Junior High and the factory, and its characters, including Jeremy, Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, Aelita and XANA, are the property of Antefilms Ltd.

* * *

**Chapter Two: Discovery**

Yumi stood before his door, undecided. Instinct told her to flee. Reason told her to face what was coming, to face him, to face them. She knew that whatever the outcome, she must not kill him. Even if he tried to trap her, she must not kill him, although she did not know if she could stop herself from killing him if he did. Unless he trapped her, there was always time for flight afterward. It would take quite some time for anyone to believe the monster stories of an eleven-year-old, even if the eleven-year-old in question was Jeremy.

She continued to stand in the corridor, her knuckles two centimetres away from the door, still not knowing whether to walk away and prepare to flee forever or to knock, enter and face the boy inside, or more likely to face them both, the boy in the room and the girl in the computer. Despite the quiet inside the room, she heard him, she smelled him, and she heard the soft humming of the computer, humanly inaudible at that distance, through that door. She was probably there too, although if she was, and they were not talking to each other, then there was definitely something up.

"No," she thought. "I can't flee. I can't disappear. There'll be a search, an investigation. Who knows what they'll find out? My mother? Lyoko? No, I can't risk that. Not yet, anyway. Jeremy's reasonable, maybe he won't tell anyone.

"Besides," she thought with a hope she did not feel, "who knows? Maybe it's about something else entirely…"

She knocked.

"Come in!" said Jeremy.

Yumi opened the door, entered the room and, after a moment's hesitation, closed the door behind her. Jeremy was standing beside his bed, while Aelita looked at her from the computer screen. Aelita's face was expressionless. Jeremy's was not. He looked unsettled, uncertain, and yet somehow determined.

"Have a seat," said Jeremy, offering her his chair.

It occurred to her that he had been sitting on the bed and not in his chair. Could the chair conceal a trap? "No, thank you," she replied, "I'll stand."

"Very well, then," replied Jeremy. "Yumi, I have a very strange question to ask you, although I don't know how strange it is to you."

Jeremy paused. Yumi's expression was one of curiosity and ignorance, but she knew that the question she had been dreading was coming. It was not about something else entirely.

"Yumi, we've known each other for months now, and we've come to trust each other, at least I've come to trust you. You were the first to know when I met Aelita and the first to go to Lyoko to defend her. You advised me that we could trust Ulrich and Odd with the secret of Lyoko and with Aelita's defence.

"But I've noticed something disturbing during the transfers. I thought it was a glitch in the system at first, but it's not specific to any hardware or software and it doesn't happen with Ulrich or Odd. It happens with you, always with you, and only with you.

"Yumi, I'm sorry if this sounds bizarre or insulting, but I have to ask you this…"

Yumi braced herself while appearing to remain calm. "Ask me what, Jeremy?"

"Yumi… are you human?"

Silence for a moment, as Yumi realized that no tricks, no lies, no angry, blustering questions, no denials could save her. The only way out lay through the truth.

Yumi sighed heavily, bowed her head, and replied, "No, I'm not."

Jeremy sat on his bed, closed his eyes, and bowed his head such that his forehead rested in his hands and his elbows rested on his legs just above his knees. "I didn't think so," he muttered.

"So, what are you?" asked Aelita. There was no horror or hostility in her question; to Aelita, the idea of Yumi not being human seemed no less natural than the idea of rain falling. It was just another thing about the real world that she did not know or understand, and so she asked.

"A kitsune. A fox spirit."

"Oh," Aelita replied, with an expression that sounded a bit nervous to Yumi.

"Yes, a kitsune," said Jeremy, still seated, but risen from his earlier crouch. "A supernatural creature known for its cunning and deceit. Just about everything points to them being tricksters that cannot be trusted or believed."

"Jeremy…"

"I'm sorry, Yumi," Jeremy said as he stood up, "but I can't trust you anymore." He turned away from her, and then continued, "I can't trust you with Aelita anymore."

Yumi looked at the back of Jeremy's head, and then bowed her head. Her elation at knowing that Jeremy was not going to tell the authorities about her, much less try to trap her, was far overshadowed by the pain of losing Jeremy's friendship, and the anger that the same old prejudices were making a mess of her life yet again.

"Jeremy," she asked in a cracked voice of pain and sorrow, "when have I ever deceived you? When have I lied to you? When have I ever been anything to you but a friend?"

"I don't know," said Jeremy, icily, "when have you?"

"That's not fair and you know it!" replied Yumi bitterly.

"Jeremy," asked Aelita, "How do kitsune trick people?"

"Well, apart from changing their shape," Jeremy replied, turning to look at Yumi again, "they can cloud people's judgement, make things appear real that aren't, and generally bend people's minds to believe what they want them to believe."

"The old legends again," Yumi thought. "And yet there is _some_ truth in them. We _can_ read thoughts to an extent, but it takes decades of rigorous practice, and even then we sometimes get it wrong."

"Would their tricks work on programs?" asked Aelita.

"Huh?"

"The mind-bending and the illusions, Jeremy; can they affect computers?"

"I… I don't think so… they shouldn't… why?"

"Because I don't have any records of Yumi ever telling me anything false."

"Uh…"

"The only data we have that indicates she _might_ deceive us are the articles you gathered on the Internet and, far from being conclusive about the habits of kitsune," Aelita paused, then continued, "they weren't even sure that they exist.

"Yumi, I can't speak for Jeremy," Aelita continued, "but I still have faith in you."

"Thank you, Aelita." Yumi said.

Silence. Jeremy looked at the floor. After a while, he raised his head, looked at Yumi, and said, "Well, if Aelita still trusts you after all this, I guess I do too."

"No, you don't." said Yumi, a bit sadly. "Not really. That will only come back with time."

"Yeah," replied Jeremy, "I guess so. Anyway, Ulrich and Odd don't need to know about this."

"No, they don't. Not yet, anyway."

"So I'll… I'll see you later, then."

"Yeah, O.K., Jeremy. See you later."

"'Bye, Yumi."

"'Bye, Aelita."

After Yumi closed Jeremy's door behind her, she sighed. Not only was Jeremy not going to trap or expose her, they were still friends. She knew that he would second-guess and double-check everything she did for the next week or two, and that he was probably looking through the data log of their conversation right now to check that what was recorded was what he remembered. But she knew he would come to trust her again. Everything had gone so well that she was even a little disappointed that every word she said was true and every gesture and expression she made from her confession onward was genuine and heartfelt.

If it had been a trick, she thought with amusement, it would have been such a great trick…


	3. Realization

**Author's disclaimer:**

_Code Lyoko,_ its locations, including Kadic Junior High and the factory, and its characters, including Jeremy, Yumi, Ulrich, Odd, Aelita and XANA, are the property of Antefilms Ltd.

* * *

**Chapter Three:Realization**

Now here she was, more than a year later, facing it all again, the anguish, the distrust, the prejudice, all over again. It seemed even harder now. She had only known Jeremy a few months when she told him, and he had already figured it out himself; she had merely confirmed his suspicions. Now she had known Ulrich for almost two years and they had become comfortable with each other. They were too comfortable, maybe, and definitely too comfortable for this secret to remain between them, whatever the consequences.

He had to be told, but she could think of no safe way to tell him. This, she thought, was the least dangerous way.

Now, however, looking at his face, she realized that she had not considered the possibility of him having a stroke or a brain haemorrhage. He was beet red, and the veins on his neck and forehead were standing out.

"O.K.," he said, "I can understand why Jeremy didn't tell us; he was afraid it would break the team up. But why didn't _you_ tell me?"

"Because I was afraid."

"OF WHAT?" Ulrich yelled.

"Of how you'd react," replied Yumi, ironically.

Ulrich grunted and tore at his hair. "Isn't anything normal _anywhere_?" he asked, enraged. "All my friends are fighting a mad computer virus bent on destroying the world… and what friends I have! The clown prince of rock and roll, a kid who lives on the edge of cyberspace, a virtual girl who lives _in_ cyberspace, and now my girlfriend, who I thought was the only normal person I knew, turns out to be some kind of… of werewolf!"

Yumi recoiled in horror. "Ulrich, please, whatever happens between us, if you ever felt anything for me at all, never, ever, call me that again!"

"Huh?" replied Ulrich, off-guard, surprised that he could still be surprised.

"They're real, Ulrich. Werewolves are real, and they are more dangerous and terrifying than you can possibly imagine. There are at least two of them around the city. Thankfully, neither of them go anywhere near Kadic. One of them comes around this forest sometimes, but," she paused, sniffed the air, and continued, "he's not around here now."

This terrifying digression was too much for Ulrich. He looked around for a rock or stump to sit on; on finding none, he sat in the grass and rested his forehead in his hands, just as Jeremy had done in his room over a year before.

"So," he said weakly, "what does all this mean? What does it mean for us? Where do we go from here?"

"I don't know, Ulrich, but at least wherever we go from here, we'll go knowing the truth."

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes.

"Will we be going there together?"

"I hope so, Ulrich, but it's up to you."

"Yumi, I don't know if I can handle this. I don't know what this means. I don't know anything about this at all. But I know I loved you, and I think I still do, and if there's any way this can still work, I'd like for us to find it."

Ulrich stretched his hands up to Yumi, and she pulled him up from the ground. He leaned into her arms, and they embraced each other, and stayed in each other's arms for a long, long time.

**FINIS**

* * *

**Author's postscript:**

This was just an idea that came to me after looking up what a kitsune was. I don't know why Yumi just struck me as this eternal trickster after reading the legends, but she did. Immediately after reading about the legends at Wikipedia, I drew the picture "Yumi's Other Secret". After scanning and colouring it, I submitted it to my deviantART gallery.I was going to provide a link, but it won't show. Just look forSamBlob at deviantART, I guess. I built this story around that picture.

Proof that Yumi isn't a kitsune:

Season 1, episode 6: "Cruel Dilemma": Jeremy calls Yumi in the middle of the night and she was actually in bed, sleeping. Wouldn't a real kitsune be roaming the night?

Season 1, episode 12: "Swarming Attack": Yumi would have overheard Odd's deliberations and would have known what he was talking about.


End file.
